What Will the Future of Advertising Look Like?
A billboard located at the street corner is watching you. A camera is embedded in the billboard and a computer analyzes the people who pass by it. It tells the advertiser how many people walked in front of the screen, turned to face the ad and how long they looked at it. It reads your gender with an accuracy of 85%, so men and women will each see different ads.
Plans are already underway to detect different ages and even family groups. This intuitive digital advertisement exists, courtesy of Quividi, a French marketing technology firm.
In the future, ads themselves are engineered to obtain information on its audience, with the mined data immediately fueling message customization. Consumer data is a valuable commodity that will influence businesses and their initiatives even more than the present.
It’s already happening on the web. Internet services and media companies like Yahoo, AOL and Google are fast understanding that effective contextualization of ad messages requires the continous accumulation and usage of individual data.
Static print ads are no longer enough to engage an audience besiged by an empire of signs:
Holosonic, a US technology company, is taking the idea [of advertising] one step further. It has developed the Audio Spotlight, a system that fires a beam of sound onto a small area from a distance of more than 60ft. The effect, the company claims, is to “startle and entertain” pedestrians without being audible to anyone outside the zone….Can we expect 3-D soap packets and jingles beamed into our heads as we commute to work?
Image Credit: apwbATTACK
Advertising in the future will simply advance what marketers have always advocated: Firstly, ultra-targeted campaigns using customized messages that are highly relevant to the interests of the audience. Secondly, the launching of initiatives which build wide-spread buzz and natural viral recommendations amongst user networks and/or a broad general market.
The only difference is the improvement of both strategies by using new technologies which enhance the visibility, portability and impact of messages. Ideally, ad campaigns must become favorable interruptions which pre-empt consumer needs by being exceedingly relevant. This is the ultimate result of an architecture which collects/analyzes consumer behavior through the timeline plotting of individual data nodals.
The success of viral videos online suggests that a new advertising paradigm is here. And it inevitably involves user-generated media. Businesses must understand that their brands and messages can be shaped into successes by the participation of their audience. A campaign will have to create avenues for consumer involvement. Absolute control is no longer unnecessary.
Reverse engineer the future and we’ll see that businesses/entrepreneurs should now start to keep abreast of developments in new technologies/social channels that will help them understand their audience. Consumers will always be primarily attracted to messages that are highly relevant and interactively intriguing. Learn how to give them that.
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This is so true. Here in the Philippines, a lot of local brands are tapping the blogger population to launch and create buzz about new products. They give us a lot of freebies and sponsor a lot of parties and events exclusively for us in exchange for a post in our personal blogs.
A very timely article, with even Big G engaging content advertising themselves.
Maki you’ve addressed and summarized well,
the ‘why’ and ‘what’ we need to do to
stay in the game and succeed going forward:
“visibility, portability and impact of messages”…”Consumers will always be primarily attracted to messages that are highly relevant and interactively intriguing. Learn how to give them that.”
Can we grow out of niche market video with the giants in that same space?
Thanks for another great article.
I felt like I was reading something out of Minority Report and Back to the future. I think they will probably measure eyeball movement as well.
We will probably be carrying some sort of RFID that prompts relevant ads as we pass billboards. Ya, Big Brother is watching and he is still growing.
Whilst I think most of your article is right, I think you’re wrong about with your first paragraph.
The dystopian vision of all-seeing, all-knowing billboards just wouldn’t be tolerated in Europe (and I suspect the US too). All that expensive, shiny technology can be easily subverted with the basest of human tools - sticks, rocks & fire.
The challenge for next-gen advertising is to make us want to see it. Web advertisers know that shouting at consumers no longer works but showing them something shiny does, so more viral campaigns, sponsorship and downright deception can be expected.
If it makes traditional ad-men sweat, then I’m all in favour!
Ultra targeted ads is good news for all internet marketers…As more and more businesses understand how effective and targeted, placing ads on a website can be, we will hopefully benefit more…
I think advertising as we know it will decline in terms of effectiveness and value for what it costs. Even if something is relevant and shiny and presented in a catchy way, people are getting more used to tuning out ads and messages. Just as we have ad and popup blockers in our web browsers and the ability to skip ads on TV, we may even develop ways to further tune out ads in real life. I think key influencers and friends will play a larger role in helping people find products/services to purchase. That said, I agree that data is going to be even more valuable and all this new technology is very cool.
I checked out one of the stumble review mentioning a future of advertisement similar like minority report. I think it’s quite true, instead of predicting a crime to happen, ads should be able to predict purchase before it happens. Location-based and interest-based is something that I believe will be very much likely in the near future.
Robert
Adding to my previous comment, I think a challenge for the advertisement industry is about how to know the effectiveness of the ads. It’s something that ads provider can claim to their clients on the value they provide. It may not a problem with the online ads industry, but for billboards, it’s something that is hard to count.
As advertising gets more advanced, I fear advertisers will spend the majority of their time figuring and using the new technology, instead of spending the time to create great products. Great advertising, or fancy advertising methods is not a replacement for great products.
However, once you have a great product, being able to target the people who can use it more effectively is a win-win situation.
wow. it seems like it’s happening faster than we all would have thought. It’s even better than contextual advertising that most of us are displaying on our website.
Interesting.
It would be interesting to know how information like this is already being used to serve ads to you on various sites based on your web surfing and social media profile patterns. I am sure they could work out some very interesting demographics just by looking at a persons web history
You should watch Spilberg’s movie “Minority Report” which shows similar concepts that you have explained. The advertising always target oriented - sending messages to right people.
Regards,
Santosh Puthran
Management Accountant Blog
I look forward to more intelligent advertising. The current situation is an improvement from the past, but as I’m learning from my site, it’s nowhere good enough.
Nice idea. I think that it would not be long to have such advertisements implemented. Anyway, I think that there are good and bad for such advance advertisements because more advance advertisements will result in low quality contents and products. More and more people will try to make their advertisements as persuasive and as attractive as possible to generate more sales and will neglect on products quality.
Regards:
William
eBlog Entrepreneur
The thought of advertising like that seems exciting and scary at the same time. When does advertising like this becomes infringing upon us? What happens when all this information gets into the wrong hands? Only time will tell.
I think “beaming” information or “favorable interruptions” could potentially backfire. Regardless of whether the information is audience-targeted based on data mined — despite however relevant it may be, it doesn’t give the consumer the benefit of the doubt. There is so much more to it than customization — it is about creating relationships. With new technologies popping up everywhere, do we, as the consumers, feel like we are losing control? I think the key to future advertising is providing these technologies to supplement decisions, not force them upon us. The most successful advertising will make us feel in control, whether we really are or not.
Reading the article (excellent by the way) reminded me of the movie Minority Report. I can see the advertising / marketing / promotions channels making the switch and fairly quickly. Good thing universities won’t have to re-write their textbooks on the subjects of advertising / marketing / promotions as the principles will always remain the same.
I like Joseph’s comment and about “reading something out of Minority Report”. It does sound a lot like something out of a movie like that. Anyway, I just don’t like the idea of cameras all over people in public. I had a problem when they first came out with those traffic light cameras. It made we want to go out cut the cable on those cameras. I have always been a kind of a revolutionary at heart.
It is not that I have anything to hide It just feels kind of like a invasion of privacy.
For online marketing, I think behavioral targeting is the future.
It should naturally contain what the readers want (educational marketing) or like you said, favorable interruption like in viral marketing.
I’m looking forward for other insights about this.
Great post. I’m waiting for them to cross advertising on multiple mediums; such as TV ads based off your internet activity and interests.
I’ve read about chips they want to place on products in stores to help automate inventory, but they could be used by billboards to determine an ad based off what is in your trunk that you just purchased at the store.
Lots of great insights about the future of advertising.
I agree with Chad, advertising will need to leave consumer feeling in control and like they’re not being manipulated.
If you think about, it’s pretty scary how advanced advertising will look like… kinda like mind reading…
This is right on point and a very interesting post.
Thank you
Hah just like Joseph earlier my first thought was Minority Report. But I certainly agree. With the ability to just skip ads on Tivo and people getting their information more and more by pull rather than push, advertisers are going to have to really make things extremely intriguing or very personalized. I don’t think customizing is the only way. Super Bowl commercials can still grab a lot of attention by just being entertaining enough. But no doubt advertisers are going to have to be more and more creative to grab attention.
wow, new design, love it
nice post
I think that as SystemsThinkeer says, it’s importan to have a WOW factor, to entertain, no matter what media you are using.
Does someone has more information about Quividi, the French marketing technology firm? I’m trying to google it but it seems to hide from me.
Thanks
Okay…you’re scaring me with all the details on this.
“A camera is embedded in the billboard and a computer analyzes the people who pass by it. It tells the advertiser how many people walked in front of the screen, turned to face the ad and how long they looked at it. It reads your gender with an accuracy of 85%, so men and women will each see different ads.”
Way too intense, but totally necessary to address. Thanks.
It is all a bit 1984 for my liking.
I am looking forward to the time when internet television is the only thing that exists and they know everything about you based on your internet browsing and I don’t have to see tampon ads any more. You will only get ads for stuff you actually might want and because of that the ads will cost more, but we probably will get longer shows with less commercials. But maybe that is too optimistic.
I think mobile advertising will be very interesting for the coming 2 years.
They will put everything in video format…
Nic
An “audio spotlight [to] startle and entertain pedestrians?” Let’s hope they couple this with a video camera to record the negative response on the face of the angry pedestrian.
The industry must move away from interruption advertising and learn the effectiveness of targeted, permission based advertising. How often are you really interested in watching a car commercial? Once every five years or so - when you’re actually thinking about buying a new car. At that time, you are wide open to an advertiser’s message, but until then, it’s just more clutter to be ignored.
The other consideration is that today’s consumer has access to endless web reviews of everything being sold. If a product is interesting, people will want to know about it, but they are much less likely to be persuaded by advertising when they see a single star next to a critical Amazon rant. Why waste money on advertising when the product is lousy to begin with?
In addition to blogging I work for a start up called Digi AdServices Network which is a digital signage company. Digital signage is definitely sweeping the world and yes there are a lot of concerns over privacy issues of what a person is doing in front of a high def digital display. The industry is still in its infancy and as such all digital signage companies are struggling to find accurate metrics on how people react and interact with digital signage. One thing that is agreed on by most digital signage companies is that by using an embedded camera to gauge reaction………that data is NOT to be stored. No one wants to be labled as big brother……..or at least I hope not……. our company certainly doesn’t want that label.
It will be interesting to watch this industry develop over the next several years……… from paper posters to digital……..
The future of advertising..
you can spend millions on advertising but you still can’t stop other people from spreading the truth.
R.I.P. Broadcast media!
Reminds me of the movie, Minority Report. I’m waiting for the retina scan to get my individualized advertising package.
Nice write-up. Kind of also agree with Honest Ad man but worried about privacy issues just like Noviceseo. While one might be interested in car advertisements only for the most part, interests in movie advertisements may also warrant an interest at different points in time. Why should one then such advertisements be filtered out. Just because he did not watch that in the past, does not mean he wont watch them in the future.
Yaaaa..after reading a few paragrahps it quickly reminds me of the film Minority Report. At one time it feels so scary and eerie like you cannot have your own privacy. let’s say if somebody hear what is your name and try to do something bad. The regulation must be quite tight to approve this type of technology.
The advertising industry will evolve more intu virtual ads 3d, 4d ‘live ad’s’ talking to you. In the end people become so used to it that we don’t respond to the ads any longer.
This battle will continue to wage on. Broadcasters will constantly deploy new methods to bombard a message. However…
- Send me an email I don’t want - I’ll use an anti-spam tool and block all your messages
- Try to Pop-up your Ad on a site I visit - I’ll add a Pop-up blocker
- Fill the TV with Ads and I’ll Tivo it and fast forward through
- Do the same with Radio and I’ll reward Satellite Radio
- Place too many Ads in my paper publications - never mind I became desensitized to print a long time ago - I simply turn the page
Seems to me that everytime someone developes a way to MAKE someone see their Ad - a “defense shield” is deployed against it that is more effective - and at a much lower cost. Some get bothered enough to resort to launching a “companynamesucks.com champaign” or hit the blogosphere buzz machine, doing more brand damage (without cost) in real time than the good the advertising had intended to create. An important thing to note is that the internet has a very long memory so the ‘counter punch ‘will always hurt more and be ‘out there’ for ever.
We live in interesting times when both sides of this new ‘cold war’ are equally armed. Good post!
I would be curious to know the cost of advertising on such a billboard and if sales would truly overcome these costs.
Future sounds so interesting with all the amazing ways of advertising mentioned above…very interesting and engaging post.
Found this interesting video of what the future might look like in media.
http://epic.makingithappen.co......erfs1.html
It is takes place in 2015 and looks back at the internet.
God damn, I’m glad I found this website. You are a smart muthafuka! : )
yeah here is another post about this ive recently read about this.
http://www.bulentongun.com/200.....rtising-i/
This is absolutely amazing! I think people will be more in awe than anything at the Billboard itself! Digital Advertising by means of AI. Extreme target market audiences. Fantastic stuff in the works for our future!
Billboard attention; advertising is capturing the web market but the cost is high. Ads should be very effective, highly communicating and Advertising and marketing channels are making bigger leaps.
Very true, ads are engineered and reared to get maximum information for audience and customize for customers.
Thanks for such a valuable information, nice write-up.
Word of mouth would always be effective. Nothing beats having someone you know tell you (aka free advertising) about the good and bad of any product.
I think in the future people will have microchips embedded in their skin like a tattoo and ad networks will broadcast their ads on your body. Of course, people who socialize more will earn more money than people who just sit at home in front of their computer.
I heard Google is already developing “Adsense for Biological Organisms” and it should be available for BETA testing within the next few months !!
best blog i ever seen about this article
That is so wierd! It is amazing at how fast things seem to have moved on in the world in a relatively short period of time! Smart advertising boards!?! What next I wonder? 0^0
It all sounds like a lot of science fiction but some of this stuff will probably happen sooner or later
Adverts projected into your dreams!
looks like sci-fi indeed but I don’t think it will happen soon, maybe few decades more and people will start to appreciate it, and will become a real advertisement to hook up.
I think user-generated media will get much bigger and diminish the impact of any static print media.
It’ll look like Bladerunner.
Next question.
BB
Well, if that’s going to happen in the future I think it will be very fascinating. Like a science fiction movie.. Great article Congratulations!!
I can totally agree with DownUnderDS it all seems very 1984 and space age thinking, but on the other hand there is a gap in the advertising industry calling out for even more targetted advertising. This is a more realistic approach:
“The only difference is the improvement of both strategies by using new technologies which enhance the visibility, portability and impact of messages. Ideally, ad campaigns must become favorable interruptions which pre-empt consumer needs by being exceedingly relevant. This is the ultimate result of an architecture which collects/analyzes consumer behavior through the timeline plotting of individual data nodals.” - a paragraph i could relate to with the company i work for.
Perhaps, the answer is waiting just around the corner… ; )
Ya You right… everything in the word are always change, … so just waiting for somekind of brand new marketing approach and strategy. Have we ready for it ?…